(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
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[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
I have been variously referring to Christopher Hitchens as a "warblogger heartthrob" and a "go-to guy for the warbloggers" recently. With yesterday's Slate offering, "Pious Nonsense," he joins the ranks of his admirers. He is now a warblogger - by which I mean his arguments have become vapid, under-informed, and irrelevant to his supposed object of inquiry.
His latest aims to demolish just war theory by leveling insults at its two most famed proponents: yes, Jimmy Carter and Tariq Aziz. His choice of targets, as well as his scrupulous avoidance of substantive engagement of either man, much less just war theory itself, is enough to earn him a cherry spot on Andrew Sullivan's blogroll. He furthers his candidacy for that distinction by misspecifying the date of Iraq's invasion of Iran, and by writing the following:
One wonders what it would take for the Vatican to condemn Saddam's regime. Baathism consecrates an entire country to the worship of a single human being. Its dictator has mosques named after himself. I'm not the expert on piety, but isn't there something blasphemous about this from an Islamic as well as a Christian viewpoint?
Ah, so Saddam's presumption in naming Mosques after himself justifies his slaughter - and that of anyone standing within miles of him. Amazing, but he at least notes his nonexistent expertise re: piety. I'd have thought his increasingly frequent recourse to the implements of Christian piety would have clued him in to the relative blasphemy of naming religious sites after oneself. In his drunken haze I guess he never noticed the names of wealthy parishioners on portal stones and chapels in churches, and I suppose the possibility of having his access to booze compromised urged him against seeing, perhaps, the Sultanahmet and Sulemanyye Mosques. posted by Anonymous12:03 PM
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The Watchers
WBW: Keeping track of the war exhortations of the warbloggers.
